By Larry Macdonald<\/p>\n
Part I – Methodology<\/p>\n
How do you measure Greatness at Duke<\/a><\/b>? Measuring Greatness is different from measuring Value. Value is contributing to wins, and lots of players do that. Value is helping your team win. Greatness is making your team win.<\/p>\n Looking at the 2025 team, who are the players we are going to remember as being great? Cooper Flagg<\/a><\/b>, certainly. It was his team. Kon Knueppel<\/a><\/b> and Khaman Maluach<\/a><\/b> were great, too. The 2025 team was deep, with a lot of good players who had value, but how many were truly great?<\/p>\n Greatness is leading your team as you contend for a championship. Most people consider Christian Laettner to be Duke’s greatest player, because he was a very good player with excellent contributions to his team, and his team was always in the Final Four, including two Nation al Championships. To be a great player, you’ve got to have the individual numbers, and you’ve got to contribute to a winning team. I have developed a methodology that measures Greatness by the numbers that uses these two factors.<\/p>\n STEP ONE: Measure the Efficiency of each player on the team.<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s a common simple formula for measuring efficiency that looks like this:<\/p>\n Efficiency = Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks \u2013 (Turnovers \u2013 Shots Missed \u2013 Free Throws Missed)<\/p>\n This simple formula adds up all the positive things a player does and subtracts the negative ones, using the basic statistics found in most references.<\/p>\n I prefer to use a slightly different version. I weigh the values of Assists at 1.5 and Rebounds at 0.5. There are two reasons why I add additional value to assists. It isn’t because assists are more valuable than the other statistics, but when a player has a lot of assists, he makes the team better, but it’s the other guys who score the points. Adding more value to assists gives that player more of an individual contribution. Second, subjectively, without this adjustment, the guards all look like they rate too low.<\/p>\n For rebounds, please allow me to defer the reason until later.<\/p>\n Example: Cooper Flagg, 2025.<\/p>\n Efficiency = Points + 0.5xRebounds + 1.5xAssists + Steals + Blocks \u2013 (Turnovers \u2013 Shots Missed \u2013 Free Throws Missed)<\/p>\n Efficiency = 709 + .5×277 + 1.5×156 + 52 + 50 \u2013 (78 \u2013 318 \u2013 34) = 813.5<\/p>\n This gives credit to every Duke player and put them all on a linear scale, regardless of how they accumulated their numbers.<\/p>\n Example: Duke 2025 had Efficiency of 3,680 in 7,802 minutes.<\/p>\n STEP THREE: Define a Baseline as 80% of the team average. Use this factor and apply it to the minutes played for each player and subtract from each player’s Efficiency. Allow no negatives; if the Baseline is higher than a player’s Efficiency, assign 0. Call this Efficiency Over Baseline.<\/strong><\/p>\n Example: Duke 2025’s team average is 3,680 \u00f7 7,802 = .472 Efficiency points per minute. Take 80% of that, .377. This is Baseline per minute. Cooper Flagg played 1,133 minutes. Multiply his minutes by .377 and his Baseline is 427.5. Flagg’s Efficiency over Baseline is 813.5 \u2013 427.5 = 386.<\/p>\n The reasoning is that by removing ordinary Efficiency, what’s left is extraordinary. Players who have these extra points are great. That rest of the steps calculate how great, by using these points along with evaluating the strength of each team.<\/p>\n This is where I can explain the lower weight on rebounds. Like with assists, rebounds aren’t worth less than the other statistics to the team, but they do concentrate more among the big guys who stay closer to the basket, and so they have better opportunities to grab rebounds. The guys who get a lot of rebounds should have a larger baseline; the best way to do that is to reduce their Efficiency points by reducing the weight on rebounds.<\/p>\n STEP FOUR: Add up total Efficiency Over Baseline for each team.<\/strong><\/p>\n Example: The players on Duke 2025 had a total EOB of 827.7.<\/p>\n STEP FIVE: Calculate the percentage share each player contributed to the team total. We call this calculation Contribution.<\/strong><\/p>\n Example: Cooper Flagg had 386 of Duke’s 827.7 EOB, which is 46.6% of Duke’s team total.<\/p>\n STEP SIX: Multiply each player’s Contribution by the Ken Pomeroy team rating. We will call this calculation Greatness Points.<\/strong><\/p>\n Example: In 2025, Duke’s rating on kenpom.com was 39.29. For Cooper Flagg, 46.6% of 39.29 is 18.3.<\/p>\n Note: If any player has less than 1 Greatness Point in a season, change it to 0. There are two groups of players here, those who were just barely over the 80% of team average cutoff, and those who had very limited playing time. Greatness isn’t marginal \u2013 you can’t be barely great. You have to deserve it. So we will zero out values below 1.<\/p>\n By using the Pomeroy rating, if you have Player A contributing 40% to a great team, and player B contributing 40% to a weaker team, Player A is greater. He led his team equally, but it was a better team.<\/p>\n By following these steps, we see that:<\/p>\n Part II \u2013 Season by Season<\/p>\n In Part I, we went through the methodology for calculating Greatness Points, a measure of contribution of Duke’s best players to Duke’s best teams. In Part II, we will cover each Duke season.<\/p>\n 2001 (Pomeroy 37.32, Duke’s second highest rating this century)<\/p>\n Jay Williams\u00a0G 12.9, Shane Battier<\/a><\/b> F 11.8, Carlos Boozer\u00a0C 5.9, Mike Dunleavy\u00a0F 3.1, Chris Duhon\u00a0G 2.0, Nate James<\/a><\/b> F 1.7<\/p>\n National Champions and ACC Champions, with Shane Battier taking most of the Player of the Year awards. The numbers don’t take into account Battier’s leadership qualities. All five starters were great and the sixth man, too.<\/p>\n 2002 (34.19, 3)<\/p>\n Carlos Boozer\u00a0C 12.8, Jay Williams\u00a0G 10.5, Mike Dunleavy\u00a0F 8.4, Chris Duhon\u00a0G 2.3<\/p>\n Carlos Boozer had a very underrated season by Duke standards. Jason Williams won Player of the Year, but Boozer leads here. Duke had a great season with their third highest Pomeroy rating despite being upset by Indiana<\/a><\/b> in the Sweet Sixteen.<\/p>\n 2003 (23.75, 20)<\/p>\n Dahntay Jones\u00a0G 5.8, JJ Redick\u00a0F 4.0, Chris Duhon\u00a0G 4.0, Shavlik Randolph\u00a0F 3.7, Shelden Williams\u00a0F 3.3, Casey Sanders\u00a0C 1.2<\/p>\n With the Williams\/Boozer\/Dunleavy class leaving after their junior seasons, Duke took a step back in 2003. Star power that season was more balanced.<\/p>\n 2004 (32.33, 6)<\/p>\n Shelden Williams\u00a0F 11.5, Luol Deng\u00a0G-F 6.8, Chris Duhon\u00a0G 6.6, Shavlik Randolph\u00a0F 3.6, JJ Redick\u00a0F 3.4<\/p>\n Duke’s 2004 season is another one that seems to have been forgotten as one of the greats, with national championship ending in a controversial loss to Connecticut in the Final Four. Shelden Williams ranks well because he scored, rebounded, blocked opponent’s shots, and didn’t miss many of the shots he took.<\/p>\n 2005 (27.41, 11)<\/p>\n Shelden Williams\u00a0F 13.1, JJ Redick\u00a0F 8.2, Daniel Ewing\u00a0G 5.1<\/p>\n The season that could have been with a sophomore Luol Deng<\/a><\/b> and a freshman Shawn Livingston, both bolting to the NBA after they were inked into Duke’s line-up. The Williams-Redick-Ewing trio were the Big Three and take all the Greatness Points of this season.<\/p>\n 2006 (27.54, 10)<\/p>\n Shelden Williams\u00a0F 13.8, JJ Redick\u00a0F 9.8, Josh McRoberts\u00a0F-C 3.8<\/p>\n This season is remembered for JJ Redick capturing Duke’s all-time scoring title and his second set of National Player of the Year awards, but Shelden Williams continued to put up huge numbers in the positive categories. Many people were surprised that Williams had his numbers retired along with Redick, but clearly both deserved it.<\/p>\n 2007 (23.30, 21)<\/p>\n Josh McRoberts\u00a0F-C 11.1, DeMarcus Nelson\u00a0G 4.9, Greg Paulus\u00a0G 4.0, Jon Scheyer\u00a0G 2.2<\/p>\n With Williams and Redick graduating, this was considered a down season, but a season that most programs would consider great. Josh McRoberts<\/a><\/b> was considered a disappointment at the time, but this is a common fallacy, the fans’ tendency to blame a poor season on the best players. McRoberts was an effective player, if not a volume scorer.<\/p>\n 2008 (26.40, 14)<\/p>\n Jon Scheyer\u00a0G 5.6, DeMarcus Nelson\u00a0G 5.4, Greg Paulus\u00a0G 4.3, Gerald Henderson\u00a0G-F 3.7, Kyle Singler\u00a0F 3.4, Taylor King\u00a0F 1.6, Brian Zoubek\u00a0C 1.4<\/p>\n When the best players don’t separate themselves from the rest, the Greatness Points spread around a larger number of Blue Devils. It is a little surprising to see Taylor King<\/a><\/b> getting Greatness Points, but the 2008 team was a solid team that didn’t have a couple of individuals to soak up the points.<\/p>\n 2009 (24.31, 17)<\/p>\n Kyle Singler\u00a0F 7.7, Gerald Henderson\u00a0G-F 7.1, Jon Scheyer\u00a0G 5.6, Brian Zoubek\u00a0C 2.7<\/p>\n The 2009 season is remembered more fondly than 2008, due to the late-season insertion of Elliott Williams<\/a><\/b> into the starting line-up and a 9-1 record down the stretch, but this team had spells of inconsistency early on. Brian Zoubek<\/a><\/b> appears here with Greatness points despite the lower weight assigned to rebounds because he added blocks and steals and a high shooting percentage.<\/p>\n 2010 (33.29, 4)<\/p>\n Jon Scheyer\u00a0G 12.9, Kyle Singler\u00a0F 7.6, Brian Zoubek\u00a0C 5.6, Nolan Smith\u00a0G 4.8, Miles Plumlee\u00a0F 1.7<\/p>\n National Champions and the fourth highest Pomeroy rating of the century. Many people were surprised that Duke won the title, despite having the #1 rated offense and #5 rated defense. The number one offense was built on excellent three-point shooting, free throws, offensive rebounds, and low turnovers.<\/p>\n 2011 (28.42, 9)<\/p>\n Nolan Smith\u00a0G 12.3, Kyrie Irving\u00a0G 5.0, Mason Plumlee\u00a0F 3.7, Kyle Singler\u00a0F 3.1, Ryan Kelly\u00a0F 2.7, Seth Curry\u00a0G 1.6<\/p>\n Ah, if only Kyrie would have been healthy all year. Nolan Smith<\/a><\/b> had an incredible season. Kyle Singer regressed, but this was still an ACC championship team, a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, and spent a good deal of the season ranked #1.<\/p>\n 2012 (19.70, 23)<\/p>\n Mason Plumlee\u00a0F 5.5, Ryan Kelly\u00a0F 4.3, Miles Plumlee\u00a0F 3.4, Seth Curry\u00a0G 3.3, Quinn Cook\u00a0G 2.2, Austin Rivers\u00a0G 1.0<\/p>\n This was another season where there was little separation between the best players and the rest of the line-up, and a low Pomeroy rating, and yet a #2 NCAA seed. Austin Rivers<\/a><\/b> was forecast as Kyrie’s replacement and disappointed.<\/p>\n 2013 (26.98, 12)<\/p>\n Mason Plumlee\u00a0F 10.5, Quinn Cook\u00a0G 6.0, Seth Curry\u00a0G 4.8, Ryan Kelly\u00a0F 4.1<\/p>\n This was another championship-level team that made it to the Elite Eight before falling to the eventual (and later vacated) champions. If Ryan Kelly didn’t get hurt down the stretch and was able to play at full strength in the tournament, it could have gone the other way.<\/p>\n 2014 (24.25, 18)<\/p>\n Jabari Parker\u00a0F 8.4, Quinn Cook\u00a0G 5.2, Rodney Hood\u00a0F 4.1, Amile Jefferson\u00a0F 2.8, Andre Dawkins\u00a0G 1.8, Rasheed Sulaimon\u00a0G 1.4<\/p>\n According to Pomeroy, Duke had the #1 offense in the country, but the #86 defense. Special shout-out here to Quinn Cook<\/a><\/b>, who had more Greatness Points than Austin Rivers in 2012, more than Seth Curry<\/a><\/b> in 2013, and more than Rodney Hood<\/a><\/b> in 2014.<\/p>\n 2015 (32.48, 5)<\/p>\n Jahlil Okafor\u00a0C 11.3, Tyus Jones\u00a0G 8.3, Justise Winslow\u00a0F 5.9, Quinn Cook\u00a0G 3.9, Amile Jefferson\u00a0F 1.4<\/p>\n Another championship season. Everyone knows that Jahlil was the big dog of the team and that both Tyus Jones<\/a><\/b> and Justise Winslow<\/a><\/b> were great.<\/p>\n 2016 (21.87, 22)<\/p>\n Grayson Allen\u00a0G 9.7, Brandon Ingram\u00a0F 4.9, Marshall Plumlee\u00a0C 3.2, Luke Kennard\u00a0G 2.4, Amile Jefferson\u00a0F 1.6<\/p>\n Grayson Allen<\/a><\/b> was great and Brandon Ingram<\/a><\/b> was a solid one-and-done freshman, but the team as a whole took a step back when Amile Jefferson<\/a><\/b> got injured.<\/p>\n 2017 (24.17, 19)<\/p>\n Luke Kennard\u00a0G 7.6, Amile Jefferson\u00a0F 5.3, Jayson Tatum\u00a0F 4.8, Grayson Allen\u00a0G 3.7, Frank Jackson\u00a0G 1.3, Harry Giles III\u00a0F 1.0<\/p>\n Most Duke fans thought that 2017 was a return to national contention, but the injuries (and the tripping controversies) made 2017 a lost season. Luke Kennard<\/a><\/b> was deadly, Amile Jefferson solid, and Jayson Tatum was a great player once he got healthy. It’s too bad we never got to see the real Harry Giles<\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n 2018 (28.86, 8)<\/p>\n Marvin Bagley III\u00a0F 10.4, Wendell Carter Jr.\u00a0F 9.9, Grayson Allen\u00a0G 4.7, Trevon Duval\u00a0G 1.7, Marques Bolden\u00a0C 1.2<\/p>\n And then in 2018, we saw Marvin Bagley<\/a><\/b> do pretty much what we expected a healthy 2017 Harry Giles to do, although Harry was expected to be a better defensive player than Marvin was. Wendell Carter<\/a><\/b> was excellent, nearly as good as Bagley overall, and in the Kansas<\/a><\/b> game, his feet were set!<\/p>\n 2019 (30.62, 7)<\/p>\n Zion Williamson\u00a0F 16.8, RJ Barrett\u00a0F 8.4, Tre Jones\u00a0G 2.6, Javin DeLaurier\u00a0F 1.5, Marques Bolden\u00a0C 1.1<\/p>\n Zion had a season for the ages, and RJ Barrett put up big numbers, but was clearly no Zion.<\/p>\n 2020 (24.62, 16)<\/p>\n Vernon Carey Jr.\u00a0C 10.7, Tre Jones\u00a0G 7.8, Matt Hurt\u00a0F 2.7, Justin Robinson\u00a0F 1.3, Javin DeLaurier\u00a0F 1.1, Cassius Stanley\u00a0G 1.0<\/p>\n Vernon Carey had a very efficient season. Tre Jones was ACC POTY. Justin Robinson had his moments of greatness. Cassius Stanley<\/a><\/b> was exciting. This team may not have been as good as people like to remember.<\/p>\n 2021 (17.56, 25)<\/p>\n Matthew Hurt\u00a0F 6.6, Mark Williams\u00a0C 3.9, Jalen Johnson\u00a0F 2.8, DJ Steward\u00a0G 1.6, Wendell Moore Jr.\u00a0F 1.4, Jordan Goldwire\u00a0G 1.2<\/p>\n This was a dysfunctional team in a dysfunctional season that was part of a dysfunctional pandemic year. Matt Hurt kept making shots. Jalen Johnson quit the team mid-season. Several games were cancelled when the other teams were struck with COVID. Duke was trending upwards heading to the ACC tournament and were a bubble team, and might have been on the right side of the bubble if they had played one more game and beaten Florida State<\/a><\/b>, but then they had their own COVID outbreak and didn’t make the tournament.<\/p>\n The 2021 team played fewer games than every other Duke squad, but the players aren’t penalized for that. Their Contribution is against their teammates who followed the same schedule, and then they’re scaled to the Pomeroy rating which is not affected by the number of games played. This is a fair way to measure greatness when seasons vary in length. Otherwise, teams that play deep into the NCAA tournament would be given a big advantage. Here, they still get credit for that, as these wins generally increase the Pomeroy ranking, but it’s measuring quality, not quantity.<\/p>\n 2022 (25.15, 15)<\/p>\n Mark Williams\u00a0C 9.6, Paolo Banchero\u00a0PF 6.9, Wendell Moore Jr.\u00a0F 6.0, AJ Griffin\u00a0G 1.9<\/p>\n People mostly remember this team as being stronger than it was. Mark Williams and Paolo Banchero<\/a><\/b> were great, and Wendell Moore<\/a><\/b> was named the top small forward in the country.<\/p>\n 2023 (19.35, 24)<\/p>\n Kyle Filipowski\u00a0F 6.2, Ryan Young\u00a0C 4.9, Dereck Lively II\u00a0C 4.8, Jeremy Roach\u00a0G 1.0, Tyrese Proctor\u00a0G 1.0<\/p>\n Jon Scheyer’s team was inconsistent but had some excellent moments. Like in 2017, there were injuries to key players (this time Dereck Lively and Dariq Whitehead<\/a><\/b>) to start the season, and like 2003, 2008, and 2012, there was less difference than normal between the best players and the rest of the contributors.<\/p>\n 2024 (26.47, 13)<\/p>\n Kyle Filipowski\u00a0F 11.0, Jeremy Roach\u00a0G 4.5, Jared McCain\u00a0G 4.4, Mark Mitchell\u00a0G 2.3, Tyrese Proctor\u00a0G 1.9, Sean Stewart\u00a0F 1.5<\/p>\n
STEP TWO: Add up the Efficiency for each player to get a team total. Also add up minutes played.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n